Amazing Grace
by Ellie 5192
Summary: "Timothy was her acceptance. Angela was her reassurance. ...Teddy felt like her reward." Canon-compliant, Shelagh-centric, Turnadette, one-shot.


_A long and contemplative (also self-indulgent) Shelagh piece inspired by my endless rewatching and the hymn of the same name. Started as a snapshot of mum and baby in the window and kind of… grew._

 _Canon-compliant, Shelagh-centric, Turnadette, one-shot._

 _ **Amazing Grace**_

The late morning sun was bright and the London sky a rare blue for so late in the season. Shelagh stood in the kitchen overlooking their garden through the large window over the sink, a thoughtful look on her face. The house was blissfully quiet – a rare reprieve these days from the unending chaos that was a family of five with two working parents. She and Patrick broke the mold a little she knew, at least for 1962, but they grew up (literally and figuratively) in war; during times when working hard was so ingrained that just the act of sleeping felt decadent.

All these lazy days after her son's birth were necessary she knew, but still a part of her tried to find productive ways to fill the time. Years ago, going back to nursing as a working mother had been inevitable for her, and mercifully Patrick seemed to understand that without complaint. In fact, he rather enjoyed having her around and seeing her in action, and perhaps in their own way they presented a united front against a different kind of war in Poplar. She still smiled that Timothy studied the years of her teenhood through disconnected eyes, World War Two far enough removed that he was unaffected. It was good that her children were not growing up during war. The future seemed daunting, but she and Patrick had seen the past and would never opt to go back.

The boy in question was at school, and Angela was with the sitter for the day with a gaggle of other children whose company she enjoyed. The baby, still dependent on Shelagh every few hours, was sleeping in the wicker bassinette set up in the living room, silent except for the occasional sleeping sigh so typical of newborns. So she took a rare moment to enjoy the quiet of their big house, and to marvel at her path in life as she counted her blessings and offered up a silent joyful prayer over a cup of tea.

She worried in those early days. When life seemed to be riddled in equal measure with festivities and crises; when she was so close to her wedding yet unendingly far away from it too. Festering thoughts had plagued her and made her question if her feelings were genuine. If she truly wanted this. If she truly wanted _him._ Already yearning for a life outside the confines of her habit, she was seeking answers long before the good doctor had caught her eye. She had fantasies of casting aside evening prayers in favour of a night out with the nurses and talking about first kisses, which made the silent evenings at Nonnatus especially lonely. When work wasn't distracting her she began to daydream about coifed hair and nice dresses. Watching the multitude of mothers and babies caused a twinge in her belly that only got stronger with time. In those days she felt unsettled; itching for something just beyond her reach and out of her understanding.

And there he'd been. The little boy so similar to her childhood self, trying so desperately to be grown up but still so young. And she'd taken him under her wing, having watched his mother die from afar. (And since she was so close to his father, at least in a professional setting, it made it all the easier to be a shoulder for him to lean on). Timothy had anchored her in a sense, providing both a mirror and a balm; reflecting her growing desire to be free whilst easing the aches those feelings brought. They had become genuine friends, regardless of anything else. And with that had come proximity to another unattainable dream – a man (a good, decent, loyal man) whose character had been proven time and again in her delivery rooms. Suddenly and without preamble she started to notice his presence in the room, the smell of his coat (must, cigarettes, and rain), and the heavy but immensely compassionate energy that followed him.

He noticed her too. She became aware of the furtive glances and lingering touches, not out of line but intimate in a way she hadn't felt since nursing school. Something that spoke to genuine human connection. She could tell he wanted to dawdle in those quiet moments just a little longer, wanted to hear just a little more about her childhood or her days as a rebellious youth, or even just the funny quirks of daily life inside the Nonnatus walls. He sought out the comfort of her company, and if it later developed into his own imaginings it certainly started as the friendship of one kindred soul reaching out to another.

She found herself seeking him out, hyperaware of his proximity but unable to put a stop to it. Suddenly two things had conflated and become one; her doubts about the religious life (not a crisis of faith, never that, but a crisis of path – an immovable object) met head on with the whispered dream of being a permanent part of their world (more resolutely and forever – an unstoppable force). All those uncertain half-thoughts of a life so different from _midwife and nun_ had suddenly taken shape as _wife and mother,_ and with a simple intimate kiss on her palm he had shaped her fanciful wishes into a distant and ragged possibility.

But there had been moments – fleeting, and perhaps driven by exhaustion in the days of her and Timothy's recovery – where she wondered if the reason she had fallen so swiftly into this life was because it was a simple fix for her problems. She had been drowning and he was the first life raft to come along. The timing felt too convenient, that he would take a shining to her just as her own personal crisis was taking shape. Did she really love him – a man she worked with so closely yet scarcely knew at all (and who scarcely knew her in return – not even her name at first). Did she really want to be a home-bound woman and not a nurse and midwife? Or was she just so desperate to get out of her own way that she would convince herself of it to allow for an escape. Those liminal days of being courted by her own fiancé were already filled with guilt over leaving her sisters, and though leaving had felt right, it had also felt painful, and sometimes she just wasn't sure if this _was_ the right path.

The doubts were natural, she knew. But she couldn't confide in any of the sisters, or they may think she was questioning her choice to renounce her vows, and leaving the Order was the one decision Shelagh _had_ been certain about. Either way, she knew God was calling her on a different path, and tearing away from that life was difficult enough without their well-meaning _I told you so_. And she couldn't speak to Patrick either – between Timothy's illness and his own fervent love for her, it would crush him. Even God Himself seemed to be confusing her so much with His messages that she honestly didn't trust His voice either, much as she held to her prayers and faith.

Her confession to Sister Julienne of her wedding heartbreak had been a step towards self-healing. No amount of delusion could hurt this much, she told herself that sleepless night. If she truly didn't want to marry him then the postponement would have brought relief. It brought nothing of the sort. She _ached_ with the want to be Patrick's wife, and Timothy's mother. The risk of losing those things had broken her heart more thoroughly than the previous months combined. All those pre-wedding jitters and doubts and questions had flown away with the simple realization that she wanted nothing more than to have a fairytale wedding in white, and walk down the aisle not towards just any man, but towards those two that stood there weeks later waiting for her. To take Patrick's steady hand and repeat after the priest.

And thus she realized that although others may read the timing as convenient or even selfish, her love for Patrick was genuine and pure. God had been laying the seeds of doubt for just long enough that her eyes were open and her heart ready to receive his love, no matter how many times she turned away from his soft kisses. If others whispered rumours behind her back, she learned to ignore it and focus on the voice within herself, something her weeks of treatment and recovery had taught her. And in that voice she heard her heart thrum for him; she got lightheaded and giddy when Patrick would look at her with a certain type of fondness. Being in their home made her calmer than she'd been in weeks, even if it did take her a while to get the hang of where everything was. At last God's voice returned to her, and in it she heard over and over, a simple and proud, _well done_.

With certainty had come boldness. Surety in her own intimate caresses and unbridled warmth in their familial embraces. If Patrick seemed surprised he hid it well, after all, she had shown deftness in a delivery room enough times for him to know that raw nerve lived within her. They were neither chaste nor reticent, in private or in public (even if the outside world got only minor glimpses of their physical affection, in easy cheek kisses or holding hands). Later she took charge in a different way, demanding communication where before she had shied away from it. Patrick was right; they started in silence. And she knew that they could not continue in such, and together they worked to erase that silence. Making up for lost time, she liked to think. Suddenly nights together ensconced in their bed were not just about intimacy and passion (though there was that aplenty), but also about debriefing, problem-solving and supporting each other in a crisis. And about learning the softer things too; their first kisses and their latest laughter. They became a genuine team, and any lingering hesitancy about being _less knowledgeable_ than him in the ways of marital bliss melted away as they learned to lean on each other rather than admire from afar. Old habits were hard to break, but once broken they shattered into ash and floated away on a breeze.

Without arrogance she became confident in Patrick and Timothy's love for her. It was blatant in every action, even before she left for St Anne's, and it was the strength at her back when she needed to take those steps away from the religious life. Even in those earliest days she never felt anything except acceptance and affection from the pair of them, welcoming her with open arms into their little family with such secure love.

Angela, however, had felt like validation; her immediate attachment to the tiny yowling infant had been evidence of what she was trying to achieve, proof that her dream was attainable. Proof that she could live a good Christian life and raise a child in love, no matter the circumstances or the heartaches along the way. Angela became the embodiment of their journey so far – a newborn in need of a home, so often seen in their work; a child to call their own and love with abandon. A baby that was neither hers nor Patrick's, but who belonged to them anyway and was loved by them so fiercely that it hardly mattered. In Angela she felt her place was finally cemented; a new baby was a fresh start for all of them, an even playing field, and she finally, wonderfully, felt like a real mother of the house.

The ensuing talk with sister Julienne about becoming the baby's namesake had been marvelous. Rarely did Shelagh get the upper hand with her superior, nor make her cry with joy. But she had been honest with her in a way she hoped marked a different kind of friendship between them. No other woman had taught her so much about being a mother, and it therefore felt right that her own daughter would bare her name. The admission had probably been easier for Shelagh herself, who had often thought as much in private, and who had found in the good Sister a maternal figure to replace the one she had lost so young. While she had initially been overwhelmed, Sister Julienne took it all in stride, and though Shelagh had once felt so much guilt for leaving her religious family she realized she had never truly left after all, and instead only altered, and then gained.

And they were happy. They were so blissfully happy that she couldn't possibly feel more, or want for more, or love more than she did when the four of them could spend time together in the living room of an evening. She went to great lengths to ensure Timothy never felt left out, or abandoned, or God forbid replaced. She needn't have worried. He took on the mantle of big brother with gusto and no small amount of pride. And she supposed that when she considered it from his perspective, it was just as marvelous for him, too. In such a short amount of time he had gone from a lost and sullen young boy making do in the face of a dead mother and emotionally (and often physically) absent father, to being supported and loved and a member of their happy family. He was thriving in a home that appeared at times almost picturesque; she was even a half-way decent cook, which was more than some of the mothers at the Grammar School managed (if she's allowed to think such un-Christian thoughts). And though she knew she would always keep her own career close at hand, she gained so much confidence from being able to juggle it with being (as Patrick called her) a _domestic goddess_.

Timothy was her acceptance. Angela was her reassurance.

And then there was Teddy. And as much as she abhorred the sin of pride and didn't believe for one moment that God kept score… Teddy felt like her reward. As though God was granting her just one ordinary miracle to atone for the multitude of grief and strife to which she and Patrick had bared witness. Their family felt complete with just four and they were idyllic and surrounded by love; the arrival of Teddy had filled a hole she never even knew existed. Maybe it was the lingering guilt over her body's failure. Maybe it was a basal desire to bare her own husband's child, and to have something in the world that was solely from the two of them. Or perhaps it was the act of experiencing pregnancy and birth firsthand, which she had worked her whole life to facilitate. But holding her tiny infant son had felt like coming home. The same amount of love as for Timothy and Angela (and she knew, beyond anything else, that she loved all her children equally) but it felt different. There was no gratefulness to have his love reciprocated; no sorrow over how he came to be hers. Teddy was born of her flesh, a blank slate, which was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating. The first smell of his scalp had brought fresh tears to her eyes.

And so Shelagh took a quiet moment to watch the garden in the sun, a cup of hot tea in her hand. It was a form of prayer for her – as reverent as kneeling in front of the wooden alter at Nonnatus. And how could she have known just four years ago that she would be here; that she would not only survive the threat to her health, but go on to thrive in ways she never imagined. When she dwelled too much or pondered too heavily on it, the long journey had the power to bring her to her knees. Patrick said that still waters ran deep in her, and Timothy once asked her if she had hugged quite so fiercely when she was a nun; the two of them tried unsuccessfully to hide their amusement at her frequent and demonstrative shows of affection. And though she laughed off Tim with another hug, and reminded Patrick that she'd never been particularly taciturn, she didn't have the words to describe to them the feeling of coming home to a place you've never been, and finding peace that you never knew was lost. Sometimes she thought they understood (and she caught Patrick in enough of his own contemplative moments to know his waters ran just as deep as her own), but her feelings weren't born of tragedy; she wasn't simply reveling in the good of her life after a reminder of the bad in others. She was giving thanks for all her blessings whenever she possibly could. She was savouring each new memory as it was created. She was paying thanks for the tiny miracles that were present in the most ordinary moments.

Teddy sighed again in sleep, undisturbed and content. He was still so tiny, and sometimes she forgot that he was really hers; that she _made_ him. Placing her teacup in the sink she walked through to the living room and picked him up from the bassinette, raising him in the crook of her arm high enough to smell his tiny forehead. Her eyes closed in bliss as she stood there just a moment. _I will never tire of that smell_ , she thought to herself, and placed a faint kiss on his brow for good measure. Teddy was already proving to be much like his father, not stirring a wink as she walked him back into the kitchen to look out the back window once again. If he was older she would call it indulgence, but while he was still so small she had no qualms in taking her fill of cuddles.

Later, the rest of the family would be clamouring to do the same while she prepared dinner and pestered Tim about his homework. Patrick would want to hold the baby first, and then would beckon Angela to the sofa where he would gently frame her arms to have her own hold. When she got bored of the sleeping baby, big brother Tim would steal him away as the perfect excuse to take a break from his studies. All the while Shelagh would smile at the sounds of her family, knowing she had the whole day alone with Teddy, standing by the window and marveling at the glorious sunshine.

She rocked on the spot as the sun disappeared behind a grey cloud, humming a hymn under her breath just to let her son know she was there, marking this as just the latest in a long line of precious memories to be cherished. _This is Grace_ , she thought to herself, and the sway of the leaves in the wind seemed to be nodding to her in agreement.


End file.
